Reading Part 1

Since my favorite roommate has moved in, and honestly since we've started dating I read don't read as much. This makes me quite sad, but I'm willing to concede those pages as the benefits outweigh the lack. There are other things to do and my reading before bed has turned into his nap time before his night shift, I could still read, but it usually seems so much nicer to just sleep.

But, I have recently finished two books very different and very good. The first The Passage, by Justin Cronin was a huge non-sparkly vampire apocalypse book. (I got it off an amazon list) I loved it because it was huge in scale, it covered the inception of the virus all the way through the fall of North America and the initial stages of rebuilding, but it didn't get bogged down in the details. Cronin did some clever things to get through the messy parts of the story (blah, blah, downfall of the nation blah blah) and focus your attention on the rebuilding and people. Cool story. It's the first of a trilogy and now I have to wait until October for book two.

The other book was Northern Lightt, by Jennifer Donnelly. This book has been sitting on my shelf for a number of years. I think my FB-BFF gave it to me during one of her library purges. It is based on a real murder that took place in 1906 in upstate New York. Apparently, the book An American Tragedy was also based on this murder and though I haven't read that, it is on my shelf and now I'm interested. This was a nice example of a strong voiced female protagonist in teen lit and at the book's end when the heroine starts out on a new journey, I also wanted to know what would happen.

Both of those books got passed along. Nik and I went to the beach for a few days with her delightful daughter and as I have been doing for years I left these books with her. As per usual, she also had one for me, Let's Take the Long Way Home, which she says reminded her of me, but looks sad, so it might have to live on the shelf for a while. My next undertaking is George Martin's, Game of Thrones, so I can eventually watch the series everyone has RAVED about.

This is the strange part about books and reading. Reading is a mostly solitary activity, but books are social. I'm not just talking about book groups, (I belong to only one, and strangely do so reluctantly.) but sharing books, talking about books, giving them, borrowing them and receiving them as gifts are all social activities. Books invite conversation and dialogue. Nik and I have been sharing books since high school. Her mother used to be a major source for my reading material, I remember in college I would raid her book shelf over summer break and I'm sure I borrowed far more than I ever returned. But, reading is so interesting to me that books and conversations about books are important...

(There are a few notable exceptions (my handsome friend, my brother and my Portland Based-BFF) --and this is funny because these are the people I probably spend the most time talking with but none of them read much fiction)

....but with almost everyone else I talk books and share books and suggest and get suggestions. Which is probably why I can't imagine getting a kindle type device. But, that's another post.

Lame-o Friend

A belated birthday post for one of my most favorite people. This was the email I sent her yesterday, upon realizing that I am, in fact, a flake.

(This is the conversation I had, in my head, as I drove home from work.)
Ugh. G's first birthday gift is not finished and therefor is not in the mail. Grrrr!
Wait, it might possibly be Nikki's birthday.
(Upon further consideration )
Yes, I do think it is nik's birthday.
Hmmmm, I didn't call or send a card.
Sara, you are a rather shitty self absorbed friend as of late.
It's true; I hate September.
Facebook will tell me for sure if I missed her birthday.

And I did.

The department of licensing

Quick post.
Still not the post I want to write, but sorta funny none the less. I just got a call from a deep voiced, older sounding gentleman from the Multnomah County Department of Marriage Licensing.

Apparently in the hubbub and haste of Saturday night, someone forgot to fill in some necessary information, I think it was me. I meant to check on an address that I didn't know off the top of my head...the name and official address of the religious organization who made their wedding legit.

Seriously? I'm supposed to know this off the top of my head. I filled out a an online form almost 10 years ago to marry two of my friends and that was the last I thought about it. In the 5 weddings I have performed this is the only one who called to verify ANY information. Which in and of itself is funny. Portland is a stickler for the right information, really? But, the man on the phone was nice and seemed neither amused or annoyed at me so it was okay. He even knew the correct address off the top of his head.

Blogging

I've been a journal-er for as long as I can remember. My oldest attempts at journal-ing chronicle both my childish thoughts, which is okay because I WAS a child, as well as my horrible handwriting. Hopefully, my thoughts have matured and most of the time my students can read my scrawling on the board, so apparently I'm making progress. I don't journal as much as I would like and I actually blog more than I journal. This is strange to me. Blogging has not replaced the intimacy of a pen and paper journal, but it is a different sort of pleasure. It is more of a public attempt at organizing my thoughts.

What is especially funny about this is that in my head blogging is community minded. Not that I think these words have a huge audience, but I know that there are a few people who read my blog on a fairly consistent basis. This would be strange to me if it weren't for two things, one, I like that they are reading and hope they continue and two I also read their blogs. As I think I've mentioned before I am in a year long blogging contest with one of these readers and recently realized that one of my best-est friends is also blogging with some regularity.

Her blog is baby centered and filled with pictures of complete cuteness. Her writing is even more telling about what's going on. She and I have had conversations about the unexpected pleasure of this form of writing and a silly habit of composing blogs in our heads. Part of what I enjoy is the thought process involved with writing. Thinking about what to write, how to say it and whether it will get the point across. In college I was a communications and English double major (laugh all you want) and so essentially I spent 4 years writing papers, some of which I really enjoyed. As an adult there are very few opportunities to think about writing...

(well, that's not exactly true. I teach writing, so I think about it fairly consistently, but it is a formula driven coping skill that I try to teach my writing leery students. They are not, generally, the type to enjoy the process or even the outcome, an exception to that is poetry but that's the stuff of another blog)

These posts are self indulgent, intellectual fun and it still surprises me how much I like the process and the sharing out. Most importantly, it forces me to slow down and deliberately think about what I am thinking. Intentionality is important, another friend and I have had long conversations about meditation (something I do not do) but the effect (I would imagine) is similar. It is about mindfulness. In order to write I must slow down enough to examine a situation or my own thoughts about it. And though I do not get the opportunity near as often as I like, that is why I'm writing this blog.

post script: I had completed half of this post, saved it for later, then checked the post of my best-est. Her most recent post was about blogging. I didn't read it, wanting to complete my thoughts before I read hers. So I finished mine then read hers; she also referenced our conversation, which took place last weekend, about composing blog posts in her head. Reading her comments made me nod and not surprisingly, made me even more determined to keep up with this self indulgent game.

June 5th

Here is the invitation I sent out as a group, though not quite mass, text: "If anyone is free I'm doing a mostly impromptu bbq tomorrow, 5/6ish. (But fair warning, my house will probably not be clean and my dog is annoying.)

I got mocked for the text, but my house filled up anyway. I didn't think that was going to be the case, but happily all the "Maybe I'll swing by" responses found my house and I kept pulling out lawn chairs.

There were five dogs and 12 beautiful people and food that made everyone smile. What had been clear hot day (the very first of the year) flowed into a clear lovely night. And what I appreciated the most was that the group was simply a gathering of people, all smart, funny and friendly and really that's all a group of people need to go on. Moving from space to space I could hear and take parts in snippets of conversation and simply enjoy these people who I so admire.

My brother organized bocce ball and blends easily into mixed and varied company. And my handsome friend manned the grill and had to put up with more than one person whispering, "Is that him?". Neither of which he had any qualms about. He and I spent the day shopping and working, playing and talking. This morning I am thinking about the question my mom asked several months ago, "Does he make your life easier?"

At the time the answer was no, but I wasn't expecting him to... upon this morning's consideration, I find that the answer is yes, having him with me yesterday made the day both easier and simply better. Lucky me! (But, how the hell did that happen?)

Surprise....times it's fun to be wrong.

I'm usually quite full of myself. Little Miss Smarty Pants and everything. I admit it. However, I do try very hard to admit when I'm wrong...I think this is an important thing to model for my students and along with that the fact that it's okay to be wrong.

But, yesterday when faced with a particurally difficult interaction I was forced to admit to myself that I had completely underestimated another individual. These are the times it is wonderful to be wrong. I love being surprised by people. I love it when people I love prove to me that they are even more wonderful and insightful than I had previously given them credit for being.

The details aren't important here, just that I was wrong and was reminded that I am a lucky girl. Who needs to ask for what she needs and to be patient with the world.

It was sunny and bright, I got plants put in my raised beds and had three little pots from the high school plant sale that I couldn't identify....pictures later.

Faith. Hope. and Love.

Isn't this wonderful.

Truly right?









This sweater is made of hand spun and most likely hand dyed yarn. My Fiber Based-BFF (FB-BFF) may be nutzo sometimes, but hell, the girl is talented. The buttons are pictures of Scorpio, my Zodiac sign, Mother Theresa, a well dressed Indian man who might be a god but I don't really think so, and George Washington. (She's also sorta funny). It's soft and warm and gender neutral by design. It is a baby sweater and it was part of my 30th birthday present. It made me cry. The beauty of such a gift and the faith it held in it was more than my lonely heart could process.

My most deeply held belief is that happiness is a choice. (I know, I mention this over and over) The world isn't always exactly what you want it to be, but you choose whether to be mired in the ugliness and disappointment or to should deal with what you have in a way that allows you to continue to be happy. I try to do the second.

But somedays it's hard, and other days it's just impossible. On days like this it's nice to have people around who will carry the burden of faith for you. FB-BFF has offered to do that for me. Literally. Most days I want babies and some wonderful soul around to help me raise them. I want them to have long hair and cloth diapers and play in the sand by the river. She knows this about me. Her own children are so beautiful and she is such a good hard working parent, it sometimes kills me to be around them (although, I get far, far to few opportunities). She knows I fear this will never be part of my reality. She knows this and has graciously offered to carry the faith for me, to believe for me when I'm not sure that I do. This sweater is the talisman of her belief.

I started thinking about Faith and Hope (as big ideas worthy of capital letters) after reading a few of my friend Andrew's blog posts. He was talking about the placebo effect and religion. Which I get. I am neither as well educated nor as well opinionated on this subject, but I get what he's saying.

Here are his exact words which I'm fairly certain he will not mind me re-posting. (Sorry, Andrew) "The major gripe I have with religion is that instead of encouraging others to have faith and hope, they insist others have faith in hope in the same things they have faith and hope in."

I love the simple, eloquent and perfectly exact phrasing.

It made me think of a friend I had when I was younger. He was the son of a minister, a Chinese missionary, who had married and brought his wife back to the United States where he led congregations of Chinese Americans. He lived in the same city as me for about four years. He moved to California sometime during high school and we kept in touch, over the phone, for several years. For some reason, he was the first person I opened up to when my parents were splitting up and I felt like I couldn't hold anything, especially myself, together. And we talked and I cried and he told me he'd pray for me.

I felt no cynicism or irritation at his offer, instead, I felt incredibly lucky. I have never been a follower of any religion, and my own spiritual leanings are a rather complicated mess, but when my friend told me he would pray for me I felt thankful. We both knew I didn't believe, but in praying he was holding me up to his highest power. Offering assistance in the form he felt would do greatest good. This was sincerity and love in a pure form. He couldn't help me, but hoped that maybe his prayers could.

(Quick note, I've had other people say this to me and I did not feel as grateful. There was nothing shallow, pandering or overly pious in his offer and his support, which was crucial to it's importance.)

I feel this way about FB-BFF's offer of faith. She knows my limitations. She loves me anyway and still chooses to believe for me. That is love.

This seems critical to me. Love gives shape and support to faith and hope. All can exist simultaneously, but strength comes when the three are fused. In order for that faith and hope to have a shape and substance, there must be love backing it up. Which is why religion sometimes makes sense to me. I understand how all three can be wound together; I understand how such an idea would be enticing. Though I myself cannot believe, I can understand how someone would want to. What I don't understand is religious doctrine that is based on hate or fear....how can hope and faith, both necessary to maintain and grow a religious following, flourish under those conditions? Or why should it when love is so much...easier, freeing, warmer, softer, more welcoming... pick one. I'll be overly simplistic and just go with better. Love is so much better.

My heart is not so lonely these days. The sight of her magical talisman, in my underwear drawer wrapped carefully in tissue paper, seems more sweet than bitter these days. Her faith is still stronger than mine and I am content to let her hold on a while longer, especially because she has not yet asked me to relive her of that particular burden. My handsome friend fills me with a sort shapeless hope that is happiness. Gaining in both strength and consistency I'm in no hurry to mold, poke or prod it into anything more than what it wants to grow into.

My FB-BFF can hold onto the faith, I will nurture the hope, and continue to appreciate that I am surrounded by love.

(Note, I worked on this post off and on for almost 3 weeks. That fact speaks more to my current lack of focus than any other thing. Oh, and Andrew's blog is here: http://oudevoida.blogspot.com/)

The last solider at Fort Stevens.

An unexpectedly dry-ish day in February, accompanied by an old roommate who'd never seen the Oregon Coast. I love playing tour guide. Or perhaps, I just love the beach. Possibly both.

Working an an actual post, with writing and thoughts and the like. Maybe later today. Molly is beating me in the blog posting competition, although Andrew is beating both of us.

and I am apparently incapable of writing a complete sentence.

3 day weekends call for some day drinking

This is a picture from last Sunday. My dearest Portland friend and I had a drinking day.

It was a warm dry-ish afternoon and as we walked to to bar, already a few drinks in...gin and tonics with fresh grapefruit and Old Tom Ransom Gin...we came across this handsome fellow sunning himself on the front steps.

(Quick note: the same dear friend bought me a bottle of this AMAZING gin for my birthday, seriously, it's so good I want to ration it. It tastes like cardamom and malt and oranges. It's the only gin I've ever wanted to sip.)

It was a great day...she is my favorite drinking partner and our exploits for the day included offending the bartender, making friends with drunk guy we had previously scorned, eating take out thai food at the bar and strangely winning back over the bartender we had previously alienated. Later we drank wine, made brownies and played Wii bowling. Warm, silly and happy, in the last hour we were joined by her fiance and the whole time we were surrounded by our furry four legged family members, three dogs and a cat.

Her friendship reminds me that in life I am blessed by both family I was born into and family I have created. The very first time I hung out with her, I knew I had lucked out...almost five years later I am still convinced.

Don't look at me!

Being the center of attention is hard for me. I am not attention seeking and sometimes even talking about myself in front of a group of people makes me want to crawl behind something and hide. As a general rule, oversharers or attention seeking personalities irritate me. That's not to say I don't talk to people, there are lots of people to whom I whine, bitch, moan, and ramble. But, things that are truly important are not what I want to discuss with a large group.

This relationship I have found myself in is important to me. I am so excited about it that it scares me. When things scare me, or I get overwhelmed, I tend to retreat into myself to process or protect whatever I'm excited about.

I don't generally overshare with strangers or acquaintances. I don't like my shit out for all the world to see. (Yet here I am "discussing" it....stupid irony.) In other words, the idea of changing my relationship status on facebook from "single" to "in a relationship" is equal parts stupid and scary to me. But, I did it to make someone happy. (He doesn't know this blog exists, not yet.)His reasons for wanting me to change it seemed more sound than my hesitations. My favorite crazy friend (who immediately knew that changing such a thing was not done independenly of my own volition) reminded me that relationships are about compromise.

In response, I asked her, "What the hell do I know about such things?"

What I do know is that the interest from people around me is warm, friendly, and should be taken with more grace than I can generally muster up. I also know, that for as happy as it made him (even if I don't understand the reason) it was a minimal gesture.

Now suck it up Sara and deal!

Resolutions 2011

I have a dear friend at work. She teaches in the room next to mine and her desk is next to mine. She's super smart, an awesome teacher and I sorta couldn't stand her when we first met. I honestly couldn't belive anyone could be that perky and real...oh no ladies and gentlemen. She's also genuine. As you can imagine, if I didn't like her so much, I'd pretty much hate her.

She asked me this morning about New Year's Resolutions and she was talking about them not in the traditional (exercise more, loose a ton of weight) sorta way (I mean I do have those) but as a list of fun things you would like to do this year.

Of course I've been pondering this all day....here's what I've come up with.
1. Learn to knit, actually do it...knit socks.
2. Go to the Braun Brother's Family Reunion (Ragweed in Idaho, be still my heart)
3. Visit the Newport Aquarium
4. Go camping
5. Blog more consistantly
6. Take a fun art-type class
7. Learn to make mole
8. Go to a professional soccer game
9. Organize a few poker parties
10. Learn to play Settlers of Catan
11. Go hiking in 5 new places

This list (like most other aspects of my existence) is a work in progress.

Arcadia Beach

The view looking north from my favorite day trip spot on the Oregon Coast.





It's a dramatic combination of rock and sand a few miles south of Cannon Beach, which makes it approximately 104 miles from my front door.

I have been here three times this month.

First, with the best friend I found during first semester of college: she and her 4 year old bundle of excitement and energy and joy were visiting for "girls weekend". The little one had never been to the beach. As a side note, both dogs and kids react the same upon first exposure to the beach...they wiggle around with uncontrollable glee and run. We poked things, climbed rocks, dug holes and discussed how even though it wasn't sunny we needed to remember to wear sunscreen. We know better, we declared with all indication of learning from past mistakes. Apparently, we do not and I burned so badly I peeled.

Second, with the best friend from high school: she and I once were part of a three day beach backpacking trip out of "gasp" Forks, Washington. (The trip was so long ago we weren't even aware we should be looking for vampires) At seven months pregnant her reaction to the beach was remarkable dissimilar to dogs and little girls. She dug belly sized hole in the sand squealed because she could finally lay on her stomach and then slept for an hour. I walked south with the mutt.

Third, with my brother, sister, mom and step dad, and three dogs: We picked up rocks, and took turns acting (and sometimes being) impressed by on another's finds, we waded, the mutt suffered a strange bout of dementia and was running in the opposite direction, sure he would find me. My brother practiced acrobatic feats. It was beautiful and the tide was out exposing rocks and life and beach upon which the crazy girl boxer could practice her thoroughbred impersonation. A good day.

As another side note, all three days were cloudy and fueled by peanut butter and jelly.

sunday evening drunk-ish

Buzzed would be a better descriptor. But, either way, I've consumed enough alcohol that the national boards I had planned on aren't happening. This was not a productive weekend. I think it should still be okay; I have 17 days.

A good friend came over and we sat in front of the window and drank beer and talked about all sorts of stuff. I know this girl from high school. She was living in Portland when I first moved out here and she has subsequently moved back to Eastern Washington as she waits for word about grad school. Now, seeing her is a rare treat. As we were talking I mentioned that sometime in high school it became important to me to have a wide variety of friends...and mentioned that the friendship I formed with her, probably junior year, was evidence of that. She is artsy and liberal and free spirited and intellectual in a different way than anyone I had ever been friends with (not that my friends did not posses those characteristics but she is different).

This need for diversity has stayed with me, maybe as evidence of my own sometimes fractured sense of self, but really as a means of self preservation. I always had options, different groups of friends let me express a wider variety of my own personality than I felt comfortable exposing to just one person or group. Probably, it is insecurity but there was always something a bit liberating about letting different parts of my personality out in different situations. Maybe that way I don't get bored of myself...

poor timing but a positive outlook

So, it occurs to me that I shouldn't have put forth a huge writing intensive goal (this blog) when the other goal I am currently buried in (National Boards) is also huge and writing intensive. National Boards is currently winning the battle of time and intellectual bandwidth. I am making good progress but it will be another month until I can re-focus my energies here. But, here is the thought that pushed me through the weekend and past a huge diaster of a taping session....sometimes it takes a massive failure and good friends to mitigate the ensuing mess to put things back in perspective. I feel, finally, that I might actually pass. I'm not sure, but I'm no longer convinced I will fail.

i need more chalkboard space

Once upon a time, approximately six years (or seven, I can’t figure the math out) I was sitting through new teacher orientation at my very first big girl job. Now, this group of teachers hired by Kitty Hawk that year was impressive, of the approximately seven of us, four of them are still working there and if I hadn’t been so completely over Texas, I’d probably be there as well. I do love middle school and punk Hispanic boys…but I digress. At this particular meeting, which I was actually paying attention to, a function of it being the VERY FIRST teacher meeting I’d ever been to, the man running the meeting, and in charge of getting the new teachers settled in the building was a practicing Buddhist history teacher who wrote a book about something Texas related. I’m digressing again. I remember him talking about being new to teaching and new to the building and how the relationships we’d form would probably grow to be the best friendships we had, built on the commonality of this crazy job.

With all of my 23-year-old sense of superiority, I scoffed at this idea. I had friends, thank you very much. He told us to look around, I looked around, that maybe one person in the room would prove to be among our best friends.

I looked around and wasn’t impressed. I did have, the immense luck of getting a job with someone I had gone to undergraduate and grad school with. I did not know her as an undergraduate, but with seven of us in a program we definitely had spent some time together over the course of my master’s year, but I was much closer to other people in the program. She was okay, a history teacher from a small town in south Texas, I imagined that we had very little in common. I couldn’t foresee becoming friends.

Of course, I was wrong.

Ed Miller, Buddhist history teacher, turned district office worker, where ever you are, you were right. This picture is proof of my wrongness and how right he really was. I made a small tally every time I talked to Erin this summer. I started it when my year was over and stopped when I started up again. I can’t be sure it is correct, that I recorded every two minute call, or call I received when a certain someone was driving north or southbound 35 (because really, is there a better time to call someone?). But, it’s roughly correct, and amuses the shit out of me.

So, here’s to be wrong, especially when it means I got a crazy wonderful friend out of it. And here’s to another school year, my seventh. The plan is to post once a week. Here’s also to grand ambitions.

Green and garlicy

This post is only sort of about pesto sauce.









Really, it’s about how much I love my food processor and how surprised I am that I used it. I don’t think I’d ever considered that it might be handy or necessary before I started cooking with an artist friend of mine from high school. After living in Vancouver for almost a year I found out, through her mother, that she was living, two exits over I-5 in a great north Portland house. I was invited and then luckily found myself there on a fairly regular basis.

With her help and sometimes her roommates and other friends we would occasionally create mulit-course feasts, usually Indian food, once Greek, and a few times chutney. One time, at my apartment, tamales. The food was always great but there was also something warm and inviting about being asked to someone’s house to prepare a meal, to cook. It was hanging out with a purpose and at the end we all got fed. So much better than going out, at the end we all ate what we had, together, prepared.

One time when four of us worked around her kitchen, prepping dinner. It was summer, but not too hot outside, but the smells of cooking onions, aromatic basmati rice, and spices like mustard seed, coriander, cumin and cardamom, being warmed in the oil filled the house. We drank gin and tonic while we shared counter space, passed ingredients and flipped back and forth in the pages of her recipe book. I was in charge of the food processor and made pastes of ginger and onions, minced cilantro, chopped onion and jalapeno. Her tall foreign roommate wandered down from into our mix and was awed by the movement and smells. He grabbed a beer and a place on the floor and became a stationary part of the movement.

I was awed too, I had come to her house seeking comfort, and the food and easy conversation gave that to me. I was mourning, again, a relationship that had never ever worked, no matter how many times I had prayed it would. I’d dropped him off safely, with his dogs and his love, and cried in traffic, all the way from Salem. I arrived early. The artist’s roommate had correctly appraised my mood and without asking too many questions stood beside me and washed and peeled onions from the garden as we made small talk and waited for her to get home. Unlike, the previous 36 hours, once I had crossed into their home, I was loved and accepted just as I was. They had never made me feel like I wasn’t enough, or that I was too much or that what I was, was somehow wrong.

Dinner was amazing. And we laughed and dragged it out and all ate more than we thought possible.

After that meal, I needed a food processor. If you could make evenings like that with one, then I wanted one, got one and use it all the time. Currently, it is making the picnic type food I eat all summer. Things that I can keep in the fridge and eat cold like chutney (that recipe for another day), pesto sauce and baba ganoush.

Three things are true about this batch of pesto sauce:
1. It is more expensive to make it than to buy it in bulk from Costco. I don’t care. I picked this basil from a farm where I bought fresh raspberries, I toasted and slightly burned the pine nuts and I like making it from scratch.
2. It is the best pesto sauce I’ve ever had.
3. I don’t have a recipe. For things like this, or salsa or baba ganoush I put in the ingredients in rough proportion and then adjust to taste.

Here is what goes into pesto. Throw it all in and modify to taste.
1. A large bunch of basil. Washed and picked from the stalks.
2. Approximately ½ cup of olive oil.
3. Approximately ¼ cup of pine nuts (toasted preferably).
4. About 3 cloves of garlic.
5. Approximately ¼ of shredded parmesan cheese.
6. Salt and pepper.

If only it weren’t too hot to boil ravioli.

two and a half bottles of wine later

Last night was a repeat of the previous one. With a few exceptions, first I got to play host. Secondly, this was an almost unbroken stream of stories, laughing, conversation, and cursing. I think we probably made my brand new neighbor, a Lutheran family and youth minister, blush, because truck drivers probably would have been blushing.

My friend and I had every intention of going out, leaving, making good use of her babysitter. She came in ooo-ed and ahhhh-ed over the house we sat down and started talking. A half of an hour later I suggested we open a bottle of wine and move to the back yard.

We fought off mosquitoes, layered on clothes, took break to snack on the wide variety of picnic food (including the pictured pesto) I have stocked in my refrigerator over the summer, decide we need to hang out as much in real life as we both do in our heads, and oh then wow. It's one in the morning.

I love summer. The garbage man at 6:45 this morning? Not so much.

(pesto, post tomorrow, my camera is currently too far from the computer.)